Kindle Books outselling paperback and hardcover books at Amazon

For the first time Amazon shoppers are buying more Kindle e0books than real paperbacks, according fourth quarter earnings reports released by the company.

Is the end near for real books vs. virtual books? In July Amazon announced it was selling more e-books than hardcover books.

I would like to think real books will be around forever, not just in libraries and museums. But consumers continue to snap up e-book readers, such as the Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple iPad, in droves. The Kindle recently became the most sold product at Amazon.com, which is partly incredible because the device really does only one thing wonderfully, it displays digital books. And theres the thing about Amazon potentially losing money on each sale of a Kindle.

Amazon reports that for every 100 real books it sells, it sells 115 e-books. So really the margin is thin in the arms race between e-books and real books.

Interestingly, Amazon also says it continues to see growth in paperback sales. So yeah, the race is so on.